Site considered for new clinic

August 21, 2001|By John Flink.

LAKE COUNTY — The Lake County Health Department/Community Health Center is looking at property near 14th Street and Lewis Avenue in North Chicago for a new facility to replace the nearby 10th Street clinic.

Cobbled together from three separate storefronts, the 10th Street clinic provided services to nearly 12,000 people last year, county officials said.

But the 7,500-square-foot clinic is so inefficiently laid out that clients routinely have to wait three or four weeks for appointments, explained Bob Tarter, the Health Department's director of administrative services. It also lacks off-street parking.

A new, more efficient clinic should reduce wait times and enable the department to provide better services, Tarter said. Plans call for the new clinic to be the same size, but designed for easy expansion to 10,000 square feet.

The new clinic will cost an estimated $1.4 million and is tentatively scheduled to be open by late 2002.